Chapter Text
Blue. Green. Pink. White. Blue again. The difference between asleep and awake was near impossible to recognize anymore when color and fractals were almost all Jax could see. There was no clear pattern to it, either. They ebbed and pulsed at random, blurring his vision like the aura of a migraine.
It'd been fascinating, at first. Sometimes even calming. When there was nothing else to focus on, he could watch them go by endlessly, with no sense of time or physicality. A visual lullaby that put him to rest without ever having him fall asleep. Not that he could tell, anyway.
Things had shifted lately. Not by much, but enough for it to be noticeable. It was like someone had reached over, turned up a dial, and now everything was…amplified. The feeling of the floor he assumed was beneath him. The bits of light — real light, not the colors — that would fade in and out of view. The rush of his own blood in his ears.
And the sound of voices.
The voices themselves were harder to distinguish. Any time someone was near him, they would hush themselves, unsure how sensitive he would be to the sound. It was a nice thought, but it really just made it harder to hear what they were saying. They were already pretty muffled, like he was underwater and everyone else was on the land above. But he would catch snippets. Small pieces of conversation. Sometimes…sometimes it even felt like they were talking to him.
Eventually, he relearned how to recognize Pomni's voice. The easiest way to tell it was her was that she was around him more often than anyone. He could see parts of the world around him in tiny fragments, but they were never enough to make out Pomni's face. Not yet. He relied on following the direction of her half drowned out voice to find where she was.
It made him feel like someone's blind, deaf, senile dog. One that made everyone assume the worst any time it made an odd noise. Pathetic didn't even begin to describe it. He couldn't see himself, but he guessed he looked pretty rough.
It'd been an adjustment. When he started to feel more…aware. For a long time — he could only assume it was a long time, but time hardly felt like a concept anymore — he could feel almost nothing. Floating in a space all on his own. The colors and fractals were all he could see, and there wasn't a thought in his head. It wasn't like he was trying not to think, it was that he truly couldn't. And, admittedly, it was nice. The concept of being human, existing, it simply wasn't real. Nothing was. He wasn't dead, but he certainly wasn't alive.
He, obviously, had no idea how much time had passed with him in that state before he started hearing her. Pomni. She was the first he heard, out of everyone. Him first hearing her lined up with around when he started having thoughts again. Which was nice, if only for a moment. He was conscious again, yes, but once every single memory flooded back to him in an instant, it became unbearable. Horrifying. It's not every day that you're forced to remember that, not only do you exist, but that you're in some awful state between life and death, and there's no way out.
He assumed there was no way out. And, frankly, he still didn't believe there was. For his first few days (?) of regained consciousness, he did nothing at all. He kept floating. Hearing sounds around him, but not actually listening. For how much he'd done that already, it should've been easier than it was. His own thoughts became his worst enemy very quickly. They were all he had, and he wanted them gone. He'd rather have nothing at all than have to be trapped like this. Aware, but not in control.
Eventually, he did start listening to Pomni. The bits of her voice he could actually hear, anyway. He had nothing better to do.
He didn't want to believe that she was talking to him. That was…harder than expected. No matter how much he hated to admit it, her voice right beside him calmed him down. Reminded him that he was alive. Maybe.
At first, he brushed it off. He told himself that she was having a conversation with someone else, someone just out of earshot. But he would hear people come and go, never staying a long time. Pomni, though…Pomni was there often. And she always stayed for ages. Alone, talking to herself.
Talking to herself, but addressing him. It was stupid. She probably looked stupid, telling herself about her own day. If he could, he'd make fun of her for it. Tell her it was a waste of time to be talking to someone who couldn't even hear her. He wished he couldn't hear her. It'd be easier that way, to ignore the dull ache somewhere in his chest.
She told him everything. The bits he could hear sounded…nice. She'd tell him how fun their day was, and how she wished they could bring him with them. The more she kept that up, the closer he got to believing she meant it.
It seemed like, every day now, she got louder. Everything did. Pictures would flash in front of him and make him reel backwards from the shocking brightness. He couldn't be sure if they were memories or if he was really seeing what was in front of him, but either way, the suddenness was unpleasant. He could just barely feel Pomni's hand resting on his shoulder when he would react that way. Trying to comfort him, maybe. He would lean into the touch the best he could, but it was hard to tell how successful that was when he was barely in control of his body.
Yesterday had been no different than the usual. Pomni was there for…God knows how long. Going on and on about the mundane events of the day. Jax found himself…fighting. The entire time. Fighting with himself, his own mind. That wasn't new, necessarily. It just wasn't often he had the energy or motivation to even try.
But he could feel it. Everything was so, so…close. He fought against his own senses, trying hard to hear Pomni better. To open his eyes wide and focus them. To fully process what was in front of him. There was always the invisible wall. A barrier between him and being in his own body, one he kept fighting to break through. It made his head hurt like hell. It drained all the energy out of him until he could barely hold himself upright.
Pomni could tell, probably. That he was exhausted. She just couldn't know why. She mumbled something or other about sleep, and then she was gone.
Jax laid down and shut his eyes once he registered that she had left. The movements themselves weren't something he was fully in control of, but he was aware, in a strange way, of the actions he wanted to perform. It was like he was speaking them through a walkie-talkie, then a moment or two later, someone on the receiving end would puppet his body to do what he'd ordered. As long as it worked, it was fine, he guessed. Sleep came as easy as it could, and he was finally free from the weight of his mind for the night.
The dull weight of a quilt pulled over his lap. The shuffling fabric sound of the pillows underneath his head. No, his entire body.
Jax's eye peeled open, before he snapped them back shut. It was so, so bright. He groaned, the sound vibrating in his chest and spilling into his throat.
And he felt it. He heard it. His eyes shot back open, having immediately forgotten how uncomfortable that exact thing was. He settled for a squint, his pupils trembling and his head buzzing in an awful combination that made him motion sick.
He looked down — he hadn't known he could do that until the moment he did — and his gaze was met with pairs of neon eyes.
"haAH-"
He'd made a half-yelling sound out of panic, but the fact that he could hear his own voice only fueled that fear. He could feel the thump of his heart in his own chest and the fake-ish fabric of the gloves on his hands.
He scooted backwards in a futile attempt to escape from himself. The quick heaving of his chest was totally out of his control. But nothing else was. Moving his arms, turning his head, touching his own face. He could move his own body again.
And still, he froze, like a scared little kid.
This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real.
How could it be real? He must've been dead. Or dreaming, which might've been worse.
It's a dream. If I don't move, nothing will happen.
He wasn't sure where the hell he pulled that logic out of. But he was desperately grabbing onto anything. Any explanation as to why this was happening to him, anything that could stop him from freaking out. Every time he glanced down, he saw bright, wide eyes in his peripheral. They were watching him, he could feel it. His breathing only got heavier, more panicked.
Just then, he could hear a distant shuffling. Footsteps, maybe. They dragged closer until a hand was poking in through the entrance of…whatever structure he was in. Fabric was pulled gently aside, obnoxiously bright light pouring in through the gap. Jax whined, shoving his palms into his eyes to block it out before it could make his head hurt worse than it already did.
"…Jax?"
Pomni. Her voice was meek, but absurdly loud. It wasn't like she'd intended that, but hearing her not muffled for the first time in ages was definitely a bit…abrasive.
Jax looked up, squinting. Pomni was staring back at him. Waiting for something. For a sign that he could hear her, maybe. That he could speak back.
"…Pomni."
All of the stiffness, the hesitance, the uncertainty, left Pomni's frame in an instant. Tears welled in her eyes, but she was already bounding over to Jax before he could get a good look at that.
"Jax!"
Jax didn't fight it. He didn't push himself backwards, he didn't tell her off. When Pomni crashed into him, arms open wide, he didn't have it in him to say no. He didn't want to, either. He hadn't gotten his bearings enough to stand up yet, but with the way that Pomni threw her arms around his shoulders and let his head fall to her chest, that didn't seem so bad.
Deja vu hit him like a speeding truck. The last time he'd seen her. The last things he'd said. Holding her tighter with the sliver of hope that, if he did, he might not ever have to let go. And here he was, back in her arms. He finally wrapped his own arms around her, drowning out the voice that told him she'd laugh. What terrified him much more than that was the thought that he'd have to let go again.
"You're...I knew you would…I.." Pomni couldn't finish a full sentence, and Jax couldn't exactly blame her. He had no idea what to say himself. How would any words he could think of be enough?
Luckily, Pomni chose to continue the conversation — if you could call it that — for him. She repositioned enough to scrub the tears from her eyes one-handed without removing her arms from their rightful home around Jax.
"How do you…feel? I know that's probably a loaded question."
He mustered up a chuckle for that. "Not ideal. It's…really fuckin' weird." He cringed as his own voice made his ears ring.
"That's reasonable." Pomni lowered her voice to a comfortable level, still clearly choking back tears.
She didn't choose to say much else. She held Jax close to her, on his knees, her own legs trembling. That's when Jax saw it.
"Pomni-"
Everything had been such a panicked blur that he hadn't properly examined his own limbs. His left arm, tucked across her lower back, was…it wasn't pretty. Still abstracted. Waves of green and orange and so many colors blinked up at him. The arm itself was fully black, with edges that looked sharp but had no feeling to the touch, and seemingly never stopped moving. He took in a few quick breaths that stung like needles and tried to push off of her.
"Pom- Pomni!"
That arm…it was doing a number on her. Parts of her torso flickered with glitches he was certain he'd given her. Her left shoulder and cheek looked the same, right near where Jax's face had been resting. The only light in the space was the sliver from outside and the glow of Jax's…eyes…so it was difficult to see how bad the damage really was. It wasn't hard to assume the worst.
"It's- you're glitch- stop!"
Panic bubbled up in his voice. He squirmed against her, trying to unpin himself and push her away. She only wrapped her arms around him tighter.
"Jax! It's okay! I'm fine. You're not hurting me." She lowered herself to her knees, pressing her forehead into his shoulder and keeping him tangled in her arms.
Jax was about to argue again when he recognized a new set of footsteps approaching where they were.
"I heard yelling…You alright, Pomni?"
A familiar mop of bright red hair peered around the corner of what Jax could now tell was a draped blanket. When they locked eyes, her worried expression fell into shock.
"Oh my gosh."
Pomni glanced up at Jax, her eyebrows pinched together. She let her arms fall carefully from around him, but slid her hand to rest on top of his. That, paired with the tiny smile she shot him, held so much weight without any words. I'm not going anywhere. She turned to face Ragatha as she lightly jogged up to them, leaving Jax to force down the lump in his throat.
"Pomni, you actually did it!"
Jax seriously couldn't help but grimace. "Wow, thanks for the acknowledgment, Ragatha."
"You-"
He bit his tongue. He could feel his right eye twitching. He waited. Baiting her. Say it. Tell me how horrible I am. Say how you really feel.
Ragatha drew a long breath in and just as slowly let it out. "Pomni tried really hard to help you. I…I didn't think she'd be able to bring you back."
God, he wanted to retort so bad. He'd practically come back from the dead, and all she wanted to talk about was Pomni! Typical.
"So, what, I've been such a burden on her, and it's my fault she had to try sooo hard? I didn't ask for that."
"No! I-" She groaned. Paused. Picked through her words. "I'm not saying you burdened her. I'm saying that I'm glad it worked! That comment was just as much for you as it was for her."
Jax had averted his eyes about halfway through her talking. When he gazed back at her again, the look in her eyes had softened and glazed over with tears.
"I was saying that I'm happy you're okay."
Shit. He took a quiet, practiced breath. Looking away, some of the sharpness faded from his expression. "I wouldn't exactly call this okay."
"…But you're here."
God, he didn't wanna hear this from her. He hated the way it made his chest tighten and his eyes burn. Luckily, he didn't have to think about that much longer.
"Good mor- woah!"
Caine's voice echoed through the room, Jax flinching from the raise in the general noise level. Caine smacked his hands over…where his mouth hypothetically would be?
"Hey..!" Pomni called out her greeting at a much more comfortable volume. She turned to Jax, giving his hand a soft squeeze. "I'll be right back." She assured him. He watched the glitched bits dance on the left half of her face. Blocks of white, green, and inverted colors. He sighed, finally nodding.
She let go of Jax's hand, but, for just a moment she looked at him over her shoulder and just…smiled. He wasn't sure what to make of it, but she got the ghost of a smile from him in return. Apparently, that was enough. She trailed off towards the exit of the…thing…maneuvering around pillows with the practiced certainty of someone who'd done it hundreds of times before.
The fact that he was alone with Ragatha only set in when he'd stopped staring at the empty space where Pomni had just been.
"Do you feel…okay?"
It was clear she didn't really know what to ask, or how to ask it. Something in him wanted to be pissed off, but what'd he want from her? Eloquence? Yesterday, he was basically dead. How do you go about talking to a dead guy?
"I guess." He pulled his legs towards his chest, mumbling into the tops of his knees. "Better than before."
There was no plan to specify what he meant by 'before'. It could be months ago, it could be yesterday, it could be five minutes ago. Whichever way she chose to interpret it, she would be right. She made a humming sound that would be vague to most, but having been around her long enough, he could hear her smile without even looking at her.
He stared absentmindedly down at his own body. Everything was so blurry and strange that he could barely acknowledge his right leg. Just like his arm, it was abstracted, still. There were less eyes on it, but that didn't really make it easier to look at. What a fucking mess.
Before long, Pomni was back, and Jax immediately noticed that the glitched parts of her body had been fixed. He'd have to thank Caine for that later. Although, that'd require speaking to him at all, which was a bit of a tall order at the moment.
Pomni hadn't returned alone, though Caine wasn't the culprit of the intrusion this time. Zooble followed in tow, their low voice appreciated by Jax's sensitive ears.
Soon after Zooble, it was Kinger, who stopped by with some weirdly encouraging words. Gangle never showed. Nobody brought her up, either, except for Zooble mentioning they were going to go check on her at one point. She was a sore spot for Jax, and he was not going to be challenged on that today.
Everyone who had visited eventually left one by one, each offering up their night's plans as a get-out-of-Jax's-space free card.
Whether he liked it or not, though, Pomni had chosen to stay. It was probably evening by now — hard to tell — and she was still sticking around. Jax had tried to shoo her away, he really had. Admittedly, he didn't hate her being there, but there was no way she didn't have better things to do than sit and watch him like some zoo animal. He'd even suggested picking her up and tossing her out of the tent at some point, which led to him learning the hard way that he wasn't in great control of his legs yet.
The tent had a lot of space, at least. She could be in there with Jax without him having to hear her breathing and shuffling next to him. He'd learned where the hell he even was through conversation. Knowing they'd built this all for him felt…odd. Weirdly patronizing. He knew they meant well, but the problem with knowing that was it made him feel sick. He'd left behind nothing but shit for them to clean up, and they still bothered to care for him. It was beyond annoying, how hard they all were to hate.
For what felt like the millionth time today, Jax tried to push himself up onto two feet. His palms pressed against the cushioned floor, hoisting him more upright, but before he was even at half of his full height, he fell straight back on his ass.
Pomni stirred a few feet away where she'd been laying, flipping onto her side so she could face him. "Are you trying to stand up again?"
"Nah, I'm studying to be a physics major." Despite the fact that it was exactly what he was trying to get, he was a bit surprised at the gentle laugh across from him. He couldn't stifle his own for long. Damn her, making him smile when he felt like shit.
"I told you I can help if you're having trouble."
He was quick to scoff, but when he turned and saw the gleam of Pomni's multicolored eyes, he softened. "No. I- I gotta do it myself."
It was endlessly frustrating. The way that he always felt like he was just about to get it, right before his knees would knock together and give out under him. Obviously, this was the first time any of them had seen what abstraction — and, consequently, unabstraction — could do to someone's body. Being the lab rat was already getting old.
Acting like a dick to Pomni wasn't gonna make that any easier, though. He'd already learned in the worst way possible where that would get him. Still, it made him cringe to think he was turning into some goody-two-shoes. It couldn't last long before it made him uneasy.
"You'd be too- Hff-" He cut himself off by falling down another time. "Too short to hold me up, anyway."
"You- Okay, you might actually be right about that. It still wouldn't be a bad idea for you to take a break. Rest a little."
"Whatever." He flopped backwards with a dull thud, then casually rolled his way over to Pomni's side. He ended up sprawled out face down against the blanketed floor. It was, ironically, his fastest way to get to her, and something she could get a kick out of. From the muffled sound of her laughter, he knew he'd succeeded.
Pomni fell back as well, laying down like she had been before she'd checked on him. Jax mimicked her, flipping onto his back and crossing his hands over his chest. Looking up at the ceiling. Staring at nothing.
Oddly enough, the darker it'd become, the easier it'd gotten for him to see. Everything around him was something vaguely blue or purple-ish, and every surface was completely decked out in various patterns. Polka dots, stripes, moons, stars. It sort of reminded him of stargazing, but maybe that was because his vision sucked.
"What do you think of it?"
"Hm?" He finally noticed Pomni staring at him from his peripheral after a minute or so of zoning out.
"The tent."
"Oh. I like it." He patted the blankets at his side with a steady rhythm. "It's like a padded cell but…party style." He grinned at her.
She let her eyes flutter shut. "Yeah, well, at least we didn't restrain you or anything. I think it's pretty cozy."
Silence. It kept on for a minute, and every second, it only got louder. Every sound was unfamiliar, like he was some…helpless baby chick who'd just hatched. The sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. His breathing. His fingers tapping restlessly against his chest. He sighed, tilting his head back to get an even better look at the space. The ceiling (would that even be the right word here?) of the tent was so tall, so far away. It made the stars look so much smaller. Maybe his stargazing analogy wasn't that off.
He felt small himself, lying there. How massive had he been while abstracted that they needed to give him this much space? And, actually, a better question — why?
"I…" He sighed. Damnit, how would you even word this? "Why…did you do it?"
Pomni's eyebrows pinched together, paired with a nervous smile. He could practically picture the cartoonish bead of sweat on her face, which would actually be funnier if they weren't already…cartoons. "Eeelaborate? Please..?"
"I mean…" A frustrated groan escaped him. Less directed at Pomni, and more at himself. "You all could've just…sent me to the cellar. Y'know? It'd probably have been a hundred times easier than-" He waved his hand around at nothing in particular, but it got the message across. "This."
It took Pomni a few moments to find a proper reply. "Because." She shrugged. Jax pretended like he wasn't intently watching the tiny movements of her smile. "I didn't want you to be alone. We didn't."
She rolled onto her side, facing Jax, but her eyes wandered somewhere else. "We all got to have…not a happy ending, I guess. But the happiest that we could get. And…" Her eyes met his, and it made his stomach turn. "You deserve that, too."
Her voice was so gentle that it made him wanna throw up. Not from disgust, but from fear. Or guilt, maybe.
"Earlier today?" Pomni continued, her voice even softer. "You said, to Ragatha, that you didn't ask for this. To be taken care of. But…you did."
Jax's heart dropped into his stomach.
"I remember, you know. You told me.."
It didn't feel right. The fact that this was hurting him. Seeing her like this, nearly in tears.
"You told me you didn't wanna go."
When her tears finally did spill over, Jax drew in a sharp breath. His hand's trembled and his legs shifted. And he could feel the eyes. Staring. Glowing.
"I wasn't gonna ignore that. I didn't tell them what you said, but…" She sniffled and scrubbed at her face with the back of her gloved hand. "I still wanted them to help me. I wasn't gonna…just…"
She sat up, burying her face in her palms for a moment. Taking in a deep, shaky breath to regain some composure before looking at Jax.
"Let you go."
And she smiled. She smiled at him, lopsided, with tired eyes. It took everything in him not to give up all his dignity and pull her into another hug.
Because he'd meant it. In that moment, he was so fucking scared. So terrified that he'd screwed up his millionth chance. So terrified that his plea to continue living would be the last thing he ever said to her. Despite all that, it was horribly difficult to find the right words now that he could speak to her again.
"You're probably getting sick of hearing me talk, though, huh?"
Jax sat up — more enthusiastically than he'd intended — matching her posture. He wiped a few stray tears that threatened to spill. "No, no. Nope. Just…tired." He shrugged. Hopefully he could play it off as nonchalant.
"You should sleep, then. Do you..mind if I stay here tonight?"
He raised an eyebrow, but didn't object. "If you want. Don't see why you would. Other than me being exceedingly handsome and also amazing to be around."
For someone who'd just gone through hell and back, he seemed to still have his usual charm intact. Or dumbassery, depending on your perspective.
"Uh huh." Pomni tried to act disappointed, but that did nothing to hide her grin. "I'll take that as a yes." She laid back down, throwing her arms above her head in a cat-like stretch.
"Do I not even get a bedtime story?"
Pomni cracked one eye open, only to be met with Jax obnoxiously fluttering his eyelashes (which only appeared for his bit, mind you) in her direction.
"Absolutely not."
"Wh-" Jax cut himself off with a chuckle. "Hey! You don't wanna tuck me in? I literally just unabstracted! You're bein' kinda heartless, Pom-Pom."
"I thought you said you were tired! You should be shutting up!" The grin still hadn't faded from her face. If anything, it'd gotten wider.
Jax didn't bother to tease her anymore. A contented smile spread across his face as he leaned back, crossing one leg over the other.
"…I could tell you about my day. Yesterday, that is. Is that a good enough bedtime story?"
Oh. He hadn't been expecting her to play along. He opened one eye to look at her, shrugged, and clicked his tongue.
"I suppose."
She huffed a quick laugh before diving into her story.
It was nothing special. Mostly mundane, day-to-day activities. Some things on her own, some with other circus members. The type of things you'd expect from a slice-of-life anime, maybe. Which…he'd watched more of than he felt comfortable admitting.
But…it was nice. It didn't need to be crazy. Every time Pomni would look over and see Jax sinking deeper into the cushioning around him, she'd turn down her voice, just a touch.
He sank into it, the familiar sound of her. The ramblings and tangents that he wasn't truly listening to, but that she wasn't expecting him to, either. And as he relaxed, finally, for the first time that day, everything went quiet.